Londa Rohlfing

Londa can't remember not sewing! Taught by her mother during Londa's early years, she was sewing most of her wardrobe by her early teens. Earning a B.S. degree in home economics from the University of Illinois was a natural education pathway, leading to positions in interior design, managing a craft store, and years of custom dressmaking from home while her children were young. She added to her skills with subsequent training in color analysis and wardrobe styling.

Along the way, Londa became enchanted with heirloom sewing and its creative possibilities. After attending a business school at Martha Pullen School of Art Fashion in 1988, she launched her women's pattern line featuring heirloom sewing: Londa's Elegant Creations. In 1990 she opened her own retail storefront, Londa's Sewing Etc., offering fine fabrics, quilting, classes, and sewing machines.

After thirteen years, Londa switched gears to become an Internet-based business, Londa's Creative Threads (www.londas-sewing.com), through which she strives to "offer top-quality service, education, and sewing products with passion as a fellow seamstress, teacher, and designer." She travels extensively, teaching creative sewing at shops, sewing expos, and sewing guilds and sharing her obsession for transforming comfortable sweatshirts into stylish jackets and creating embellishing T-shirts.

In 2009 Londa developed her Talking Patterns to empower and encourage her customers as they sew, offering online photographs and personal recorded directions for each step of her jacket creation process. She has also published a book with the same Talking Pattern format and has produced several DVDs. Londa's work has been published in Creative Needle, Sewing Savvy, American Sewing Guild's Notions, and Sew Beautiful magazines. Her creations have also been included in Martha Pullen's Heirloom Sewing for Women and in Sweatshirts with a Twist by DRG. She has been a featured designer on Pfaff's website www.nowsewing.net and the PBS television series It's Sew Easy.

Notions and tools, as well as technique tutorials, can be ordered from the author at her website, Londa's Creative Threads (www.londas-sewing.com).